World Development Report 2007:

1. World Development Report 2007: The theme of the World Development Report (WDR) 2007 is youth, aged 12 to 24. It focuses on decisions concerning the five phases with the biggest long-term impact on how human capital is kept safe, developed, and deployed. For each phase (continuing to learn, starting to work, developing a healthful lifestyle, beginning a family, and exercising citizenship) governments must increase investments directly and cultivate an environment for young people and their families to invest in themselves. The WDR suggests that a youth lens on policies affecting the five phases would help focus on three broad directions: expanding opportunities, enhancing capabilities, and providing second chances. Each pathway (opportunities, capabilities, and second chances) is applied to each of the transitions, generating reform suggestions. To mobilize the economic and political resources to stimulate such reforms, countries must resolve three issues: better coordination and integration with national policy, stronger voice, and more evaluation. In addition, the WDR examines both youth migration, and their increasing use of new technologies. Now available at the World Bank Public Information Center/Poverty Reduction Strategy Resource CenterHeritage Plaza I, 1st floor, Kamaladi, KathmanduFor more information:E-mail: rshrestha1@worldbank.orgCall: 4238545, 4249731Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

2. **Resilience Amidst Conflict: This report for Nepal - Resilience amidst conflict, focuses on determinants of growth and income poverty, achievements and challenges in improving human capital (education, health, and child nutrition) and on understanding inequality and exclusion. It uses data from the two rounds of the nationally representative Nepal Living Standards Survey carried out in 1995-96 and 2003-04. The surveys were conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) with technical assistance from the World Bank using the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) methodology. Data from the 1991 and 2001 population censuses and the 1996 and 2001 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys were used to supplement the analysis. Now available at the World Bank Public Information Center/Poverty Reduction Strategy Resource CenterHeritage Plaza I, 1st floor, Kamaladi, KathmanduFor more information:E-mail: rshrestha1@worldbank.orgCall: 4238545, 4249731Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

3. Doing Business 2007 The Doing Business database provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement. The Doing Business indicators are comparable across 175 economies. They indicate the regulatory costs of business and can be used to analyze specific regulations that enhance or constrain investment, productivity, and growth. Now available at the World Bank Public Information Center/Poverty Reduction Strategy Resource CenterHeritage Plaza I, 1st floor, Kamaladi, KathmanduFor more information:E-mail: rshrestha1@worldbank.orgCall: 4238545, 4249731Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

4. From Schooling Access to Learning Outcomes An Unfinished Agenda: An Evaluation of World Bank Support to Primary Education: The Education for All (EFA) movement, launched in 1990, has resulted in an extraordinary mobilization of World Bank and country resources in support of basic education over the past 15 years. World Bank EFA financing, mostly focused on primary education, has become increasingly progressive, targeting the most disadvantaged countries and often the disadvantaged within countries. Over the years of Bank support for EFA and its world conferences in 1990 and 2000, the Bank's policy objectives for increased support to primary education have been simple and remarkably stable: universal primary school completion, equality of access for girls and other disadvantaged groups, and improved student learning outcomes. This Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation assesses the extent to which these objectives have been met in countries supported by the Bank. and it provide lessons for countries in their development strategies and for the Bank in its support to those strategies. Now available at the World Bank Public Information Center/Poverty Reduction Strategy Resource CenterHeritage Plaza I, 1st floor, Kamaladi, KathmanduFor more information:E-mail: rshrestha1@worldbank.orgCall: 4238545, 4249731Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

5. Local Governance in Industrial Countries: The information revolution, in recent years, has worked as a catalyst to create a globalized yet localized world with local governments playing an ever increasing role in the domestic and global economy. How these governments will be able to shoulder their responsibilities' especially the delivery of local services more effectively is the concern of this book. Case studies include the following countries: Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This important new series represents a response to several independent evaluations in recent years that have argued that development practitioners and policy makers dealing with public sector reforms in developing countries and, indeed, anyone with a concern for effective public governance could benefit from a synthesis of newer perspectives on public sector reforms. This series distills current wisdom and presents tools of analysis for improving the efficiency, equity, and efficacy of the public sector. Leading public policy experts and practitioners have contributed to the series. Now available at the World Bank Public Information Center/Poverty Reduction Strategy Resource CenterHeritage Plaza I, 1st floor, Kamaladi, KathmanduFor more information:E-mail: rshrestha1@worldbank.orgCall: 4238545, 4249731Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

6. Reforming Collateral Laws to Expand Access to Finance: Most readers, especially those with car loans or home mortgages, know about collateral--property that the lender can take away from the borrower in the event that the borrower defaults. In low/middle income countries, it is understood that conservative lenders exclude firms from credit markets with their excessive collateral requirements. Usually, this is because only some property is acceptable as collateral: large holdings of urban real estate and, sometimes, new motor vehicles. Microenterprises, SMEs, and the poor have little of this property but they do have an array of productive assets that could easily be harnessed to serve as collateral. It is only the legal framework which prevents firms from using these assets to secure loans. In countries with reformed laws governing collateral, property such as equipment, inventory, accounts receivable, livestock are considered excellent collateral. This book aims to better equip project managers to implement reforms to the legal and institutional framework for collateral (secured transactions). It discusses the importance of movable property as a source of collateral for firms, the relationship between the legal framework governing movable assets and the financial sector consequences for firms (better loan terms, increased access, more competitive financial sector), and how reforms can be put in place to change the lending environment. Now available at the World Bank Public Information Center/Poverty Reduction Strategy Resource CenterHeritage Plaza I, 1st floor, Kamaladi, KathmanduFor more information:E-mail: rshrestha1@worldbank.orgCall: 4238545, 4249731Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

7. A Reader In International Corporate Finance (Volume 1 & 2): A Reader in International Corporate Finance offers an overview of current thinking on six topics: law and finance, corporate governance, banking, capital markets, capital structure and financing constraints, and the political economy of finance. This collection of 23 of the most influential articles published in the period 2000-2006 reflects two new trends: interest in international aspects of corporate finance, particularly specific to emerging markets, awareness of the importance of institutions in explaining global differences in corporate finance. Now available at the World Bank Public Information Center/Poverty Reduction Strategy Resource CenterHeritage Plaza I, 1st floor, Kamaladi, KathmanduFor more information:E-mail: rshrestha1@worldbank.orgCall: 4238545, 4249731Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm